Selzer calls her work social science, not clairvoyance
An Iowa judge has dismissed President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against The Des Moines Register and its former pollster, J Ann Selzer, over a poll that showed Trump trailing former Vice-President Kamala Harris in the 2024 race. In a 64-page ruling, Judge Scott Beattie held that the poll was protected by the US Constitution and rejected Trump’s argument that Selzer had engaged in “brazen election interference” and that the inaccurate prediction amounted to fraud.
Beattie wrote that Trump had sought to “stretch both Iowa statutory and common law beyond their current bounds, turning speech that enjoys the highest category of First Amendment protection into a liability.” The judge added that allowing a “legally faulty claim like this” to go forward “carries a cost that an ordinary case does not, because defending it can discourage others from reporting on and debating public affairs.”
Trump filed the lawsuit after he won Iowa by 14 points. Trump was joined in the suit by two Iowa Republicans: Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks and former Iowa state Senator Brad Zaun. Trump had accused the polling company of intentionally publishing an inaccurate poll. In a statement to US media, a Trump spokesperson said the president was “committed to holding responsible those who traffic in deception and fake news” and called the poll “a scam designed to damage President Trump’s dominant campaign in the final days of the race.” The BBC said it had contacted Trump’s legal team for comment on the ruling.
In a statement to US media after the dismissal, Selzer said polling was a social science, not “clairvoyance.” “What we can guarantee is that we will follow the data wherever it leads, even when the results are uncomfortable or unexpected,” she said. Selzer added that she was “grateful that Judge Beattie’s ruling recognises these principles and reaffirms the fundamental freedom to pursue and publish the truth without political interference.”
Selzer’s polls have successfully predicted several election outcomes, including former President Barack Obama’s sizeable win in the 2008 Iowa caucuses and the 2014 Senate election in Iowa. Her polls have proven wrong on other occasions, including when she inaccurately predicted that John Kerry would beat George W Bush in Iowa in the 2004 presidential election.